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There have been some that tried, most notably, John Dillinger, the famous bank robber who used acid to ruin the central pattern area of his fingers. Friction ridges, however, are on the tips and sides of your fingers, as well as the phalangeal areas, the palms of your hands and soles of your feet. The average adult male would have to strip off about a millimeter of friction ridge skin in order to disrupt the generating layer between the epidermis and dermis. When Dillinger was shot and killed in 1934, his body was positively identified from his friction ridges.